Browsing Posts tagged HYA

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UPDATE: Notice has just gone out on November 9, 2011, that the Assembly Committee on Education will be hearing testimony on SB 237 on November 16, 2011. In the Assembly, the bill will be called Assembly Bill 337, AB 337) . It is not yet clear when the Assembly will be voting on this sex ed bill which was passed by the Senate.

The purpose of the bill was to reverse the very liberal “Healthy Youth Act” passed in 2010, which required a uniform sex ed program across all of Wisconsin (designed by Planned Parenthood) which underplayed abstinence and required the teaching graphic of sexual material to young children.
SB 237 still allows liberal communities to continue teaching the permissive and graphic material, but no longer requires ALL Wisconsin communities to teach this material. Under SB 237, each community is permitted to create its own standards, but must teach that abstinence is the only completely reliable preventative for STDs and pregnancy.

What do Americans and Wisconsinites want?

In the U.S., 26 States have CONSERVATIVE sex ed laws, similar to SB 237, requiring that abstinence be taught in sex ed programs as the favored means of avoiding pregnancy and STDs. Conversely, 13 States have LIBERAL sex ed laws, similar to last year’s HYA in Wisconsin, which require the graphic teaching of “barrier methods,” such as condom demonstration, in the classroom. Opponents of the liberal Healthy Youth Act call it the “Un-Healthy Youth Act,” or the “Promoting Promiscuity Act,” because it does not permit emphasizing that abstinence from sexual activity before marriage is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Under HYA, stating the superiority of abstinence would constitute showing bias against sexually active students.

Wisconsin, previously more liberal, shifted to a Republican majority in the last election, November, 2010. Recent recall efforts by Democrats failed to upset that conservative majority; hence the creation of SB 237, reflecting more conservative attitudes. The liberals who have enjoyed a majority in Wisconsin for many years, are very indignant about the shift in power, as evidenced by the March 2011 demonstrations at the Madison Capitol over government employee union privileges, which made national news. continue reading…

Wisconsin Sex Ed: There’s an Elephant in the Room

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It’s become pretty challenging, trying to cut through the rhetoric, to understand what’s actually going on with the Wisconsin Sex Ed bill. At first glance, the political posturing and contradictions are bewildering—until you look at the raw data on teen pregnancy and STDs, and realize that everyone is tiptoeing around an elephant in the room.

Some of the Background:

In 2011, the new, now conservative legislature which was elected in Wisconsin in November 2010, has recently proposed a modification to the liberal sex ed bill, which would allow conservative communities to opt out of the most progressive requirements of the “old” 2010 sex ed bill (HYA), such as opting out of the condom demonstration in the classroom requirement. This proposal is called Senate Bill 237, or SB 237, or Strong Communities Healthy Kids Act or SCHKA

More details:

Conservative objections to HYA (now in use in Wisconsin):

1. HYA requires Sex Ed with a liberal and permissive spin or no sex ed at all:
If sex ed is taught, every community in Wisconsin must teach ALL elements of the curriculum outlined in HYA , including the demonstration of condom use in the classroom. Misleading phrases such as “medically accurate” and “age appropriate” are used in HYA to require the teaching of detailed explicit sexual practices and methods, including the practices previously considered by law, and still considered by numerous religions, to be deviant, unhealthy, risky, and damaging to society. continue reading…

Background

Not unexpectedly, there has been some discussion regarding the modification of Madison’s previous Sex Ed bill, the “Healthy Youth Act” (HYA), which was passed before Wisconsin’s transition of power (to Republican) in January 2011.

The “Healthy Youth Act” required that all Sex Ed programs state-wide teach the proper use of contraceptives and barrier methods (i.e. demonstrate condom use in the classroom). It also failed to provide abstinence training to pupils. In other words, it favored the more liberal approach, “let’s give up and assume that all kids have sex, and let’s try to equip them with the knowledge on how to reduce the risks.” Planned Parenthood was selected to create the new Sex Ed program.

Two thirds of America favors abstinence until marriage, so it is not unexpected that when Republicans came into power, some modifications were proposed to the previous bill. In the absence of abstinence training, if schools provided instruction on the “proper use of contraceptives and barrier methods,” it was feared that the take-home message could easily be the condoning of promiscuity and early sexual experimentation. continue reading…

about Syte

Syte Reitz grew up in Queens, New York, in a family of Lithuanian immigrants who fled Nazi and Soviet domination during World War II. Her education includes a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, and post-doctoral work at Princeton University. Syte left her job as an Assistant Professor at Oakland University, Michigan, to devote herself to raising her children, and ultimately homeschooled them through the end of high school. She is a member of Madison's Cathedral Parish.